I. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a machine vision analysis apparatus which may by used to inspect the image of an object to determine if the object fulfills specified criteria, and where it is assumed in practice that if the image satisfies the representative criteria, the object satisfies the actual physical requirements of which the criteria are representative.
II. Background of the Invention
Inspection of materials, objects, and constructions is required in many of today's industries, whether it by the inspection of an auto part coming off the assembly line or a microscopic inspection of a pap smear. This repetitive analysis often requiring exact attention is usually tedious and therefore is susceptible to human error. Whether the error be caused by laziness or fatigue is inconsequential, the fact is that personal inspection of a repetitive nature should be avoided wherever possible.
While the prior art is replete with myriad and diverse machine vision systems, the typical system is overly complex and unnecessarily limited in its scope of application. In general, the prior art constructions include a system for complex analysis of an input provided by a single video camera. This complexity increases the cost of such a vision system, and the cost prohibits the widespread application of such a system despite its useful application.
In addition, on an assembly line more than one view of an object may require inspection or the proximity of several lines may facilitate the combination of analysis hardware for both inspections. However, the prior art does not provide for such a combination and the expensive analysis hardware must be duplicated despite the close proximity of target objects. This required duplication of expensive equipment, such as microprocessors or personal computers, and therefore adds to the generally prohibitive cost of such vision analysis systems.